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Civil rights groups are challenging conditions in many of the nation's most restrictive maximum-security prisons because they believe long-term isolation breeds mental illness among inmates. Chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union have filed lawsuits across the country seeking changes to such prisons, many of which lock dangerous felons in isolated confinement for all but three to five hours a week. The lawsuits, filed in Connecticut, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio and New Mexico, claim that a disproportionate number of prisoners are mentally ill and not receiving proper medical treatment. "The people who end up in 'supermax' prisons tend to be emotionally disjointed and behaviorally have a real difficult time with themselves," said Dr. Stuart Grassian, a former Harvard University professor who has written articles on the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement. "Putting them in these environments makes it phenomenally worse." Former inmate Bob Dellelo, who served 40 years in Massachusetts prison, described living in solitary confinement as "maddening." Dellelo was convicted in 1964 for his part in a jewelry store robbery that resulted in the death of a police detective. He later was allowed to change his plea to a lesser manslaughter charge and was released on parole in 2003. Dellelo, who now lives in Revere, Mass., served five years in a segregation unit at the Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts as punishment for escaping from the Old Colony Correctional Center in 1993. "I thought I was losing my mind," he said. The ACLU's lawsuits allege that even the healthiest of inmates succumb to mental illness if they are only allowed minimal human contact, recreation or programming. A complaint filed against the Connecticut Department of Correction in August 2003 said some prisoners at the Northern Correctional Institute are "subjected to social isolation and sensory deprivation that approach the limits of human endurance." They lash out by swallowing razors, smashing their heads into walls or cutting their flesh, the lawsuit claims. [more]